Dracut amps up for election

Debt exclusion would help fund share of GL Tech's $65M rehab

An artist's rendering of the proposed 600-seat cafeteria for Greater Lowell Technical High School.

DRACUT -- For Dracut residents, election season hasn't quite given way to the holiday season.

On Tuesday, the town's registered voters will be asked to turn out for a special election to decide if Dracut will follow the leads of Dunstable, Lowell and Tyngsboro in paying their community's share of a $65 million renovation project at Greater Lowell Technical High School.

Or, residents could instead decide to "send a message" to their elected officials by voting "no" on adding a new tax to fund the project, as former Dracut Selectman Warren Shaw and other critics suggested.

A simple majority is needed to pass the measure.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority recently agreed to fund $50 million of the GLTHS renovation project, leaving a balance of $15 million of which Dracut's cost, based on student population, is $3 million.

For the project to happen, it must be approved by all four communities that have students attending Greater Lowell Tech.

Both Tyngsboro and Dunstable Town Meetings, and the Lowell City Council recently voted to approve paying for their shares of the renovation project by setting aside funds within their yearly operating budgets.

Only Dracut selectmen added a provision (which passed overwhelmingly by a voice-vote at Town Meeting) to hold a Dec.

Advertisement

11 special election to ask residents to approve a Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion to impose an added annual tax increase, spread over 20 years, devoted to paying Dracut's share of the project.

The $65 million worth of proposed renovations at the 40-year-old technical high school would include: replacing and upgrading the school's roof, skylights, windows, doors, metal siding, heating, ventilation, sprinklers, plumbing, electrical and fire-alarm systems. The funds would also be spent on making the building handicap-accessible throughout, and replacing the schools' creosote-block floors, which give off an odor and negatively impact air quality in the building, project engineers said.

Dracut's tax-impact figures, provided by GLTHS's business manager, show the owner of an average $277,000 home will be asked to pay an extra $17 to $30 annually over the 20-year bonding period to fund Dracut's share of the renovations.

At a Dracut selectmen's meeting last month, board member John Zimini urged supporters of the technical high school to make an energetic effort to campaign for a "yes" vote on Tuesday by "selling" the many positives associated with funding the renovations of the technical high school that serves about one-third of Dracut's high school age population.

Heeding Zimini's call to action over the past several weeks, numerous prominent Dracut residents have spoken publicly, written letters to the editor, and attended a "Friends of Greater Lowell Technical High School" fundraiser at Lenzi's restaurant to advocate for a "yes" vote on Tuesday.

School Committee member Matthew Sheehan, a GLTHS graduate, noted the state's School Building Authority is reimbursing the four communities for 77 percent of the GLTHS makeover.

"The community's financial obligation to its students who attend Greater Lowell Tech is most efficiently met through support for the renovation project," wrote Sheehan.

Also supporting a "yes" vote on Tuesday, GLTHS School Committee member Paul Morin, a Dracut resident, cited tax-impact figures provided by GLTHS's business manager, showing the owner of an average $277,000 home in Dracut will be asked to pay no more than from $17 to $30 more annually, over the 20-year bonding period, to fund Dracut's share of the project.

"The school is 40 years old and needs a lot of repairs. It's like anything else, if you own a home, work has to be done," said Morin.

Morin cautioned potential "no" voters that if the project -- and state funding assistance -- is rejected, then the four communities may have to fund a necessary estimated $35 million roof repair of the school on their own.

Shaw, the owner of the 104-year-old Shaw Farm, plans to vote "no" on the principle that taxpayers ought not to be "guilted" into voting for another project that could've been paid for out of Greater Lowell Tech's considerable $32 million annual operating budget, he said.

"I am not against Greater Lowell Tech doing this building project, and I'm not against the school. My issue is the tax," said Shaw. "What I'm trying to do is raise awareness as to the whole philosophy that every time a government has a project it requires new taxes. It doesn't have to be that way. It only happens that way because the people that provide these services want it that way."

Shawn Ashe, also of Dracut, blogged that he also plans to vote no on Tuesday.

"(GLTHS) operates under an exemption from Prop. 2 1/2, and increases spending every year, often at twice that rate," said Ashe. "While everyone else works to control their spending and we are all at risk for our jobs... Until I know my situation after the new year I'm not voting to raise my own taxes."

Dracut School Committee member Mike Miles said he plans to vote "yes" on Tuesday on what he views more as an "investment" than a tax increase.

"We have over 400 kids that go there; it's really an extension of the Dracut school system," said Miles. "I know it's a tough economic time and it's a tax, but on the School Committee we often talk about 'doing what's right for the kids,' and this is the right thing do."

Advocates for and against the project agree that there is likely to be a typically low voter turnout for a December special election.

The long-range weather forecast for Tuesday's special election called for clouds and a 40 percent chance of rain, with a high temperature of 41 degrees.

Shaw and Ashe appeared to hold the minority opinion on the issue, an informal Sun survey found. Numerous Dracut residents who contacted The Sun by email were unanimously in favor of casting a "yes" vote on Tuesday, including Vickie Turcotte, a mother of two daughters who graduated from Dracut High, and whose youngest daughter is a member of the GLTHS freshmen class.

"With a third of Dracut's high-school students attending, GLTHS is truly a Dracut school, even if its address is in Tyngsboro," wrote Turcotte. "It also desperately needs renovations to maintain accreditation, and to continue to offer a top-notch educational alternative for our kids."

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sun. So keep it civil.